A Staggering Statistic about Age in MMA.

[kenetics]

Ya but clearly Khabib dosent care about that the way Jones does for example. I think he did it more for his father than anything. Money didnt seem that motivating either. He wanted to be champ for his dad and that was accomplished.


I dont know the region he fought in has a long tradition of combat sports. There is a reason a lot of the guys that come from that part of the world do well in the UFC and its not like they acquired the skills over here.

Please check his early opponents combined records lol

 

[Poatan Power]

Fighters aged 35 or older are 2-28 at 170lbs and below in title fights. Sheesh.
“Very difficult “
It’s not the code of Hammurabi ffs.

"Not that difficult"

meanwhile takes this

there's been 30 times in UFC history where a fighter age 35 or older at 170lbs or lower, so from Welterweight to Flyweight fought in a title bout and do you know what the win/loss record is for them apparently? 2 out of 30, that's right, they lost 28 out of 30 times.

And says

Fighters aged 35 or older are 2-28 at 170lbs and below in title fights

Thank you for rephrasing the phrase I already rephrased.

 

[Hezekiah]

Will be nice to see Covington get smashed up again

 

[Trabaho]

DC STIPE and Francis were Champs at 38. I'm assuming Francis is not actually just 35 years old but did a imigration trick.

 

[Hezekiah]

Ye, Pereira looks like he's in his prime. About to be 36. I think he can have a new career at LHW and stay there for like 2-3 years. I think he can beat Hill as well. He's gonna be very hard to beat if he improves his wrestling. Seeing how Glover got the belt at 42. Dogshit division.

Ankalaev would destroy Pereira.

 

[Adamant__]

Ankalaev would destroy Pereira.

Low IQ Magomid? Couldn't even beat a 40 yr old man.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Low IQ Magomid? Couldn't even beat a 40 yr old man.

Combat Sambo Magomedov is going straight for takedowns and clinching Pereira up against the cage. Pereira has about a punchers chance. Remember when happened when Mousasi took down Thiago Santos and Uriah Hall? That's basically what guys are going to do when they get their hands on Pereira and start grappling him.

 

[Chagaev]

I had a Judo trainer who was always yelling at those +25 Y.O. something like "you're old and slow, you should work twice as hard".

Later on, I read some studies about it and even saw an interview with Tadahiro Nomura's trainer who was saying the same thing.

 

[Izzysexboyfriend]

If you’re on steroids it shouldn’t be an issue though and it also depends on how much weight you cut

 

[HuskySamoan]

I had a Judo trainer who was always yelling at those +25 Y.O. something like "you're old and slow, you should work twice as hard".

Later on, I read some studies about it and even saw an interview with Tadahiro Nomura's trainer who was saying the same thing.

Let's look at 2016 and 2020 Olympic Judokas ages. But yes, for all these "old man strength" touters, many wrestlers and Judokas sure do hit their primes in their early to mid 20s.


2016
Gold 60kg was Belsan Muradonov 30 years old

Gold 66kg was Fabio Basile 22 years old


Gold 73kg was Shohei Ono 25 years old

Gold 81kg Khasan Khalmurzaev 23 years old

Gold 90kg Mashu Baker 22 years old

Gold 100kg Lukasz Krpalek 26 years old

Gold 100kg+ Teddy Riner 27 years old.

Fair to note, Riner at 32, Krpalek at 31 and Shohei at 30 would all become returning champions at the 2020 Olympics (which took place in 2021).

Interesting. Not going to go over 2020 games or the full medal table but yeah, Judo and wrestling are pretty young in general but not at all uncommon for guys in their early 30s to medal and even sometimes their mid to late 30s but that's less common. Partially I think it's athletic prime but also having done Sambo and trained plenty of Judo and wrestling it's some of the hardest stuff on your body and it's so physically demanding. It's where most serious injuries happen in MMA training. I don't think the body can usually withstand the necessary training after so long.

 

[tequilaboy]

Then there are freaks like Couture.

Not in lighter weight classes

 

[Fioretti]

MMA is an endurance sport. Early to mid 30's is normal for endurance athletes. 27-35 is physical prime. Event-based peak individual performance isn't physical prime. 31-33 is the sweet spot for MMA.

 

[corrupted]

He doesnt fit in the weight class retirements. Much more common for fighters to be relevant later in the heavier weights. Anderson at 35yo has a bunch of defenses but they cut it off at WW for some reason. Wasnt Randy on TRT also?

Spot on. The stat doesn't work if you look at 185+ simply because in those divisions Speed and reflexes are not as important as they are in the lower weight classes.

And yes. Randy was JACKED on TRT, as was Hendo during his resurgence.

 

[corrupted]

Then there are freaks like Couture.

Randy wasn't a freak. He was very good and got on the TRT before the others did.

 

[corrupted]

It's different for everybody.

There was a guy in sprinting, Kim Collins. Was in the 96, 00, 04, 08, 12 and 16 Olympics. Was world champ in 2003. Hit his PR in 2016 when he was 40 years old.

At 39-40:

What's his stand up like?

 

[Hezekiah]

Low IQ Magomid? Couldn't even beat a 40 yr old man.

Beat him but was robbed unfortunately.

 

[Dreyga Hates You Sherbums]

I just heard Luke Thomas claim that there's been 30 times in UFC history where a fighter age 35 or older at 170lbs or lower, so from Welterweight to Flyweight fought in a title bout and do you know what the win/loss record is for them apparently? 2 out of 30, that's right, they lost 28 out of 30 times. I think MMA fans don't understand what a fighters prime is or how significant age is. I hear so often "he's only 36" or that a 30 year old is "young" with "plenty of time", no guys, not really.

So here's a fun fact to check. I haven't done the leg work to confirm it but it sounds right, when I compiled the data of every champions age when they won the title and lost the title and created averages...The highest average for the age of a champion when losing the title of any division was Heavyweight and it was roughly 34 years old. The claim that "the heavier weight divisions age slower" I wholeheartedly agree with but I think people fail to mention another huge driving factor why that is, it's because those divisions are incredibly shallow compared to 170lbs and lower.

Credit to Alexander Volkara France of Twitter.

Both those wins over 35 are from Tyron Woodley

 

[mmainvestigations]

I just heard Luke Thomas claim that there's been 30 times in UFC history where a fighter age 35 or older at 170lbs or lower, so from Welterweight to Flyweight fought in a title bout and do you know what the win/loss record is for them apparently? 2 out of 30, that's right, they lost 28 out of 30 times. I think MMA fans don't understand what a fighters prime is or how significant age is. I hear so often "he's only 36" or that a 30 year old is "young" with "plenty of time", no guys, not really.

So here's a fun fact to check. I haven't done the leg work to confirm it but it sounds right, when I compiled the data of every champions age when they won the title and lost the title and created averages...The highest average for the age of a champion when losing the title of any division was Heavyweight and it was roughly 34 years old. The claim that "the heavier weight divisions age slower" I wholeheartedly agree with but I think people fail to mention another huge driving factor why that is, it's because those divisions are incredibly shallow compared to 170lbs and lower.

Credit to Alexander Volkara France of Twitter.

Fighting at the elite level in the lower weight classes is in general harder at an older age, since speed is major factor in those weight classes and fighters tend to lose speed as they get older.

The "title fight" statistic is a bit misleading though. I'd like to see the statistic expanded to include ANY five round fight between top 5 fighters (1 older than 35) in those weight classes. I imagine it would still be low but not nearly as extreme.

 

[Adamant__]

Beat him but was robbed unfortunately.

He needs to fix his fight IQ and he needs to be more aware. He could easily wrestle Jan to a decision but he risked the fight and got a draw. He was about to win against Craig and tapped 1 second left. It's just pathetic. He's so frustrating. He could be undefeated and could be the LHW champ right now.

 

[Hezekiah]

He needs to fix his fight IQ and he needs to be more aware. He could easily wrestle Jan to a decision but he risked the fight and got a draw. He was about to win against Craig and tapped 1 second left. It's just pathetic. He's so frustrating. He could be undefeated and could be the LHW champ right now.

I was disappointed with his performance overall. But hey, at 30 he has time to improve!